Wednesday, February 10, 2010

When my Facebook page went to the new design yesterday, my first thought was: I like it, visually at least. Somehow a cleaner, more organized look, I felt. But the longer I fool around with it, the less appealing I'm finding it.

The status updates, which used to be clearly visible on the left, are now collapsed under the "Friends" tab. I liked it just fine where it was before. Also collapsed under this new "friends" tab: my friend groups, which I'd set up to keep my family members and closest buddies from getting lost in the status update/news feed wash. The different groups showed up on the left hand side of the page, in clear view. Now, you have to click on the "friends" tab -- which I forgot the last time I went to check on my siblings. Made me a little grumpy.

I'm not the only one. When I typed "Facebook" into the search function, I turned up similar grousing from others in my network. "Stop changing Facebook," wrote one. "I'm old and I can't keep up." Amen, sister. Another friend included a link to a "Change Facebook Back to Normal!!" Facebook page that had more than 1.8 million members.

20
comments:

Anonymous
said...

People never like the fb changes. But fb never goes back and never corrects issues. Unless something new comes along and takes enough users, they're not going to listen. Someone create something better!!! I'd love to jump ship, but this is the only way I can keep up with my friends who have kids and thus no social life.

I really, really, dislike the 'new' Facebook, also! There are so many things that don't work that it reminds me of Beta versions of different apps that are put out there before all the bugs are worked out of them. I am this close <> to deactivating my FB account.

I agree - it's prettier to look at but functions aren't as friendly. My biggest pet peeve: One has to dig to find Status Updates. If they'd send it to select 'NON-superusers' they'd find the glitches much quicker and have them fixed before they go to the masses. GRR!!!

The new Facebook design is TERRIBLE. They need to revert back to how it was a week ago and go back to the drawing board -- and then they need to do three things:

1. Poll users to see how people actually use Facebook. I use(d) the Status Updates view almost exclusively and had it set as the default when I went to the News Feed page (which is now called the Home page). This option is no longer available.

2. No matter what they decide to do, they need to ADD flexibility, not take it away. The old design used Ajax to allow you to move elements (such as the items on the News Feed page) around -- the new design does not let you do this.

3. Before rolling any redesign out to everyone, have a Beta process where people can VOLUNTEER to use the new redesign and iron out any bugs.

You people never cease to amaze me. If its new, be sure to complain.... Its called INOVATION people!!! If you "critics" had your way, facebook would still look like this: http://shorefire.com/blog/uploaded_images/old_facebook-773309.jpg

The new layout not only looks better, but is much more functional. All the notifications are at the top where they belong, and messages/requests are available from a quick drop-down.

Facebook was much better when it was a college and college grad ONLY social networking site. They won't change it for anybody though...wouldn't even matter if ALL of Facebook joined a group petitioning against it.

I set up my Facebook page a year and a half ago, and there have been more changes in the past couple months than the rest of the time combined. I don't think the techno-geeks that are implementing all these changes are consulting any end users. They're designing stuff based on how techno-geeks think and organize, which as we all know, is vastly different from the rest of us.

And techno-geeks will gleefully point out the reason for that - they are higher life forms than the rest of us.

Did you notice that the "Change Facebook Back to Normal" cause has posts dating back to October 2009, the last time they made changes. Some of those 1.8 million are mad about this change, but some are there because they are mad about the last change.

I've been one of the ones complaining. Now I'd be happy to be able to even get into my account. It's been down since last night for maintenance, my husband and daughter can get into theirs. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow those few hours of maintenance will finally end.